U.S. Politics, November 2022: “I don’t know, you hear the same things I do”

KM you are a good poster in my book and actually i almost singled out one of your one-liners earlier today for being great and funny. as far as longer-form political analysis goes, i think you have a pretty damn good handle on the American right-wing nut psyche and the bigger structural problems that tip us into a beyond-satire daily bald-faced cynical theater of the absurd.

could it be that spending too much time spelling that out and articulating its contours could do more harm than good, or make the situation seem more closed and hopeless than it is, or just not be the way you want to spend your day versus reviving great old 80s video game threads? idk! not really my fuckin job to say! that shit's your call. but meantime, please know you're a good poster and that your great many good posts have brought me a lot of chuckles and more over the years.

Can’t remember if I’ve said so, but: KM, your takes are always welcome.

Rare thing to get me on this thread: KM is as word-perfect funny as Rob Sheffield at his best.

Just to be clear on what this means, Alliance Defending Freedom is asking a hand-picked, Trump-appointed district judge in Amarillo to effectively block legal access to Mifepristone on a nationwide basis.

Stunningly important — and stunningly cynical. https://t.co/cEvCkmbOxv

— Steve Vladeck (@steve_vladeck) November 18, 2022

Not even worth pointing out that they're explicitly using activist judges to achieve what they can't via popular opinion, I guess.

alfred, sic, doctor casino, raymond cummings, and clemenza all otm x 10

Glanced at some piece asking if Biden, who turns 80 today I think, is too old to run for president again. The most obvious answer is, yeah, duh. He would be 86 or so when he leaves office. But yet another bad precedent set by Trump is seeking the office for personal protection. I can totally imagine Biden not running, not being president again, and then all the lunatics in the GOP persecuting him and his family till they are in jail or dead

Maybe, I don't know. The Biden/Brandon hatred is totally situational, I don't think it runs anywhere near as deep as the antipathy to the Clintons and Obama. If Biden were no longer the one keeping them from dominance I think their interest would fade fast.

But it does sadly look like one result of the midterms is that Biden's going to run again. I can't stress enough how bad an idea I think that is, and if the Dems had anyone credible champing at the bit a la DeSantis I would 100% support whoever that was getting in. But they don't, so. Jesus. I can't believe we are headed for another fucking showdown of white men born in the 1940s.

Kind of wondering if the repubs end up carnivalizing their own party by splitting into the corporate conservative side and the ranting teabaggers and then they are so divided they never win again - or a third party candidate runs who ruins everything for them by stealing votes

I feel like they carnivalized their party a long time ago.

Kind of wondering if the repubs end up carnivalizing their own party by splitting into the corporate conservative side and the ranting teabaggers and then they are so divided they never win again - or a third party candidate runs who ruins everything for them by stealing votes

― | (Latham Green), Sunday, November 20, 2022 8:27 PM (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

That's overdue by several years and several times. It's probably still happening and is just an atrociously slow and ugly process, a continuous identity crisis for the GOP. A third center party in the US would be an excellent political response to all this, one can dream.

https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2022/11/should-joe-biden-run-for-re-election-a-lgm-discussion

You don’t give up the incumbency advantage unless you’re forced. The Democrats have Pritzker and Whitaker who look like decent possibilities but I think it would end up being Harris and she’d get smoked in the general.

lol the comments quickly turn into rehashing whether Bernie could have beat Trump. Hence the problem. On the GOP side, it’s “Trump or DeSantis.” On the Dem side it’s Biden or … who? I hate it. But my hope for any alternative (short of a health condition that forces Biden out) is waning fast. Good luck USA.

Nobody over 70 — 75 maximum — should be eligible for any federal office.

iPhone autocorrect has not learned Whitmer

A third center party in the US would be an excellent political response to all this, one can dream.

"Center" as defined by whom? Chuck Todd, Joe Lieberman and Andrew Yang?

whitmer, pritzker and healy are the most promising potential candidates in my mind (no idea if healy would run and also not sure what her appeal would be like in a general, given she's a LADY GAY, but I like her; then again I tend to like losing candidates)

also I think we need to throw Polis up there. The guy is extremely well liked in colorado. and given the tenor of the GOP in opposition to LGBTQ people in this country (against, I feel, popular sentiment) and the shit that just happened today, it would not be stupid for the dems to run a gay candidate. but again, I have terrible political instincts, I thought Howard Dean was a shoo-in so wtf do I know.

It'd be nice if we could have an open primary where all these hopers could jump in and test the waters. But right now we have to wait until 20-goddam-28.

yeah I dunno about that, kind of thinking biden won't run despite everything he's implied to the contrary

talking yetserday with people we were trying to remember when the last time a sitting president running for re-election got primaried and I could only come up with Teddy Kennedy/Carter. Did Brown primary Clinton?

Bush/Buchanan

Bush/Buchanan

The '92 GOP race was my first experience with people who thought a Republican president wasn't crazy enough.

yeah I completely erased Buchanan from my memory

Nobody over 70 — 75 maximum — should be eligible for any federal office.

otmfm

You know they used to just run people as people should have had a choice. The whole running somewhat unopposed is kinda of a newer thing. Of course, you did not used to need $100 million dollars to run for the f'ing office, but hey bribery is legal these dayssssssssssssssssssss.

The Modern Presidents with primary challenges have all lost the general afaict (Ford, Carter, Bush) so I think parties do anything they can to avoid them

If you’re going to set an upper age limit, you’re gonna have to set a lower one too. I don’t want to live in an America where a baby can’t run for president with his/her great-grandparent as veep.

President unborn fetus will take removal of the 35 limit and addition of fetal personhood amendment to next level

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onjCGr7DmMk

Nobody over 70 — 75 maximum — should be eligible for any federal office.

otmfm

― J Edgar Noothgrush (Joan Crawford Loves Chachi), Sunday, 20 November 2022 23:09 (yesterday) link

why stop there? add operating a vehicle!

Age limits seem like a repeat of the term limits argument.

There is a whole school of thought that the way to get old people out of politics is to not vote for them. Vote for other people instead. The way to get people to not stay in office forever is to not vote for them, and to vote for other people instead. I live in a state with a notoriously strict term limit for governor, and it's an open question about whether that has helped us or harmed us in the long run.

Good morning!

I mean, there's a fairly simple solution to keep old fucks out of politics:

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BODYwMDhlNGYtMjJkYi00ZTViLTgxNTgtZGNlYjdjNmFiYTVmXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTIwODk1NTQ@._V1_.jpg

I'd take Bernie over 40 year-old Peter Buttigieg. 51 year-old Hakeem Jeffries likely next Dem leader in the House is just a corporate Dem who does bidding of lobbyists

https://prospect.org/politics/succession-hakeem-jeffries-nancy-pelosi/

2021 article

I thought Howard Dean was a shoo-in so wtf do I know.

I honestly still don't get why Howard Dean didn't have more political legs.

I honestly still don't get why Howard Dean didn't have more political legs.

Howard Dean was 5'9". He would have been the shortest president since Carter. Can't have that.

(Seriously, Carter was the only US president of the modern era — since JFK — not to be 6' or taller. Truman was 5'9", Eisenhower was 5'10", a fact which surprised me. I thought he would have been about 6'2".)

Was Dean left handed?

He was left branded.

I'd take Bernie over 40 year-old Peter Buttigieg. 51 year-old Hakeem Jeffries likely next Dem leader in the House is just a corporate Dem who does bidding of lobbyists

I'd take a younger Bernie over them but c'mon, Bernie should retire. He's 81. Holding on that long is mostly about ego, the idea that nobody but you can do this important work. And it stifles the party pipeline.

Nixon was over 6'? I always pictured him as shorter...maybe unduly influence by Anthony Hopkins' portrayal, where I think he hunches over a bit.

Probably also subconsciously attributed a Napoleonic complex to him.

Wikipedia has Nixon at 5' 11-1/2". Obviously, this is of paramount importance...carry on.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heights_of_presidents_and_presidential_candidates_of_the_United_States

5’11 & 1/2 means 5’9” in reality

Is It Immoral for Presidents and Presidential Aspiriants to Wear Lifts To Appear Taller and More Powerful? A Discussion Thread

I googled DeSantis' height recently because he kind of presents as a shortish guy to me, but it says he's 5'11" so I guess not.

The Sky Is Not The Limit and You’re Never Gonna Guess What Is: Height in U.S.A. Governance, 1920-2030

Don’t mind me, just goof in’

Bernie Sanders ain't getting any taller folks